The blog software that I use to host this and other blogs is called Movable Type. Overall, I’ve found it to be excellent software, bar none.

Recently they’ve announced a new 3.0 version. While they still offer a free version, it’s limited to one author and three blogs. That automatically disqualifies me, since I have 5 blogs and 5 authors running on this site. Thankfully, I don’t have to upgrade, so we’ll just run version 2.64 for the foreseeable future.

Initially, I was very annoyed to see the new pricing schema. It seemed to be out of the blue. I read on Mena’s corner (Mena is a co-author of moveable type) about the change, as well as people’s reaction.

Then I listed to the interview with Ben and Mena (35 minute streaming mp3 interview). Hearing their motivations for the change, I couldn’t help but sympathize with them.

In short, MT has moved in a direction that is different from what I use it. They are heading in the direction of services, I use them as a software provider. They need income to fuel their business in the directions they want to take it. Sadly, that direction is away from my own needs, but at least it’s not the sort of thing that makes me angry. Or well.

I was bored this weekend, so I baked some bread at my in-law’s house. It was very good, and very tasty. It’s more of a coffee-cake consistency, but try it. It’s good.

1/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Cream butter, sugar and egg. Add Buttermilk, baking soda, flour and salt; mix well. Combine sugar and cinnamon; set aside. In a greased 9″x5″ loaf pan (I used an eight inch round pyrex dish myself, worked great) place in order 1/3 of the batter, 1/2 of the cinnamon mix, 1/3 batter, remaining cinnamon mixture, remaining batter. Bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes, or until a knife in the center comes out clean. In the pyrex dish, it took 65 minutes to bake completely.

The battery in our verizon phone (an LG VX4400) has been going bad for a while now. Since we’ve had the phone for 11 months, I figured it was time to get it replaced before I had to pay for a new battery myself.

The first verizon Customer Service rep. that I talked to was Shannon Davis. He was less than helpful. He tried to tell me that it was going to cost me $30 for verizon to send me a new battery. His analogy was that car manufacturers don’t replace your tire if you get a flat. That analogy has so many holes that it hurts. For one, Verizon’s own information page about the phone says “One year warranty”. There are no qualifiers on that warranty. No “one year warranty on the phone itself”, nothing. So I pointed that out. He just kept trying to insert that “on the phone” phrase in there himself. I also pointed out that I don’t drive my phone on its battery. I’m not liable to pick up a nail in the tire, and the battery is not a wear part (not in the same sense as a tire). A properly maintained lithium ion battery should last several years. This one lasted 9-10 months. Clearly, the manufacturer has a battery issue.

Eventually, the conversation degraded into me speaking loudly at Shannon, explaining to him that he was yet another example of the putrescent (I used that word) customer service that Verizon has provided me throughout the life of my contract with them. He continued to parrot the same line. Now granted, he was probably trained to do this, so it’s only partially his fault. He never offered to let me talk with his supervisor though. He never offered to ask someone who knows if my battery was under warranty, nothing. He just continued to offer to send me a new battery for $30.

So I asked him to speak to his supervisor. She (Shaneir Brown) was very nice to me. I explained the problem, she put me on hold to inquire with technical support (or some such) about my phone and its battery. Eventually she came back and told me that I could get a free replacement at any verizon wireless store, because my battery does in fact have a 12 month warranty. Thank-you Shaneir.

Some of my friends and I have really been enjoying warcraft 3 lately. It’s a well done game, in my opinion. Anyway, Mikey and I play a 2v2 last night on battle.net. The opposing team did someting interesting.

They skipped producing their first heros. Instead, they immediately purchased neutral heros from the tavern on the map. Now this seems anti-intuitive at first, but after thinking about it, I believe there are some advantages. First, the tavern doesn’t take any time to produce a hero. You just pay for it, and it’s done. Now granted, your first hero is free if you buy it at your altar, but maybe there is advantage in getting it faster? Have it leveled up a bit? That sort of thing… Might even be able to put off building the altar until a little later, making the hero purchase less costly….

There are a few other trade-offs with this, but I just wanted to mention it. Very interesting strategy.